


Satellites

by deuil



Category: Terra Formars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5094251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuil/pseuds/deuil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They're both private people, caught between worlds and floating on borrowed time. She respects that. He, in return, respects her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Satellites

Michelle doesn't remember when she met Adolf Reinhardt, and she doesn't imagine that she'll remember when they see each other for the last time. Some lives are like that— a passing of shoulders, sleeves brushing by sleeves. Finite. 

But somehow, she still believes that they're comrades. Thinks about that, every time she sees his shadow turn corners and disappear through doors.

Comrades.

 

Michelle doesn't remember when she'd heard Adolf talk for the first time; maybe it'd been during a meeting, where they'd sat next to each other for preliminary greetings-turned-political-sniping, with their armrests positioned neatly so that everyone stayed precisely 22 inches apart. Maybe it'd been when she ran into him on her way to a locker room that she couldn't find, muttering complaints low under her breath. "Down the hall to the left", he'd have said, with his passing-for-native English marred only by the harsh click of his 't's.  
She doesn't remember when or how, but she could tell by the steadiness in his eyes that Adolf was sincere— that he had a tenuous equilibrium held together by a heart that drummed too heavily under the height of his collar.  
She doesn't remember when she thought she could befriend him.  
It was always, she figures.

 

There are people who are born alone, from the moment they're placed in their mother's arms to the day they realize that the library of their lives are full of books that say 'confidential'. They learn quickly enough that people get bored of loaning out pages without getting anything in return. So they take to rereading the margins of their own stories as often as they can, to see if anything written in them coincide with what little they've found within everyone else.  
They look for overlaps. Trends. Solace.

 

First, Michelle finds out about Adolf's scars.  
Then, she finds out about his past.  
Finally, she finds him eating lunch behind the building of the U-NASA cafeteria, shoveling sandwiches in his mouth as if he's ashamed of the bright packaging that they came in.  
She has a feeling that neither of them will ever be the wiser about the other; the 85 kg woman with a curse in the name of a blessing, and the quiet German bearing a cornerstone that balances too precariously on broad shoulders. They're both private people, caught between worlds and floating on borrowed time. She respects that. He, in return, respects her.  
But every so often, she hears whispers in the German Branch of the U-NASA headquarters. Words like 'scary', 'unapproachable'.  
Every time she does, she highlights another portion of her undisclosed life novel. Circles the overlaps. The trends.  
She likes to think that Adolf's done the same.

 

Michelle doesn't remember when she first met Adolf Reinhardt, and she doesn't imagine that she'll ever really find out about the nature of his passing. She hears from Alex that it's a bright light that cuts the haze of her first night in Mars, a melancholy explosion that barely makes it over the sound of their vehicle's motors; a passing storm, the last rumble of dwindling thunder.


End file.
